Blizzard

World of Warcraft Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar is almost upon us. To help you prepare, we’ve provided an overview of vital information you need to know so things go smoothly when patch day arrives. You can also review the current Public Test Realm patch notes, or even download and play on the PTR itself for a taste of what’s to come.

The new patch brings a new raid, many class changes, a new PvP season, and a whole new questing area. It also marks the end of the Battlefield: Barrens event. Read on to learn how you can be best prepared to dive into the adventure when Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar hits.

Class Changes

There are changes coming to every class in Patch 5.4, including glyphs and abilities, as well as alterations to established mechanics like Vengeance. This is an excellent time to head over to the Public Test Realm patch notes to begin familiarizing yourself with what to expect when you log in on patch day. Do keep in mind however that the PTR notes aren’t final, and things could still change before the patch.

Where’s the New Valor Gear?

There won’t be a new Valor Quartermaster come 5.4. Instead, we invite those of you intent on gearing up quickly to face Patch 5.4’s challenges to visit the new Timeless Isle. You can get a taste of what’s to come by reading Bashiok’s Timeless Isle preview.

The Ethereals who offer Item Upgrades are sticking around, so you’ll still be able to spend yourValor Points on upgrading your existing gear.

PvP Updates

​Season 14 Begins!

PVP Season 14 arrives with Patch 5.4, which means a few different things. First, Season 14 Grievous gear will become available. Elite versions of Season 14 Grievous will also be available as a mark of prestige for players that reach a personal rating of 2,000 and earn 27,000 Conquest Points over the course of the season, and the non-Elite pieces will no longer be a pre-requisite to purchase them. The prior season’s Season 13 Tyrannical gear will be available for purchase with Honor Points, while Season 12 Malevolent gear can now be crafted. Finally, equipping any pair of PvP trinkets from Season 12 or later will grant a 10% reduction in damage taken (Gladiator's Distinction) from other players.

New Arena System

Big, big changes are coming to how Arenas are organized in Patch 5.4. The most important part is that players will no longer need to create or join an Arena team to compete. Similar to the Rated Battleground system, players in a party of the appropriate size (even cross-realm!) can queue for an Arena bracket of the same size as their party (2v2, 3v3, or 5v5).

For the details regarding how Arenas work in 5.4, check out Daxxarri’s blog on the subject: Patch 5.4 Arena Update.

The conflict that has been occurring in the Barrens is culminating in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, but that also means that the various quests offered there, as well as the Darkspear Rebellion Quartermaster, will no longer be available once the patch hits. If you want any of the items that the Quartermaster provides, such as Xan'tish's Flute or Latent Kor’Kron armors, then your time grows short!

Attention title hounds! The Battlefield: Barrens exclusive titles, Hordebreaker (Alliance) and Darkspear Revolutionary (Horde) disappear with this patch! If you want either one, you’d better get out there and finish the quest line before it’s gone.

Attention Transmogrification enthusiasts!Griftah's Authentic Troll Shoes are disappearing with Patch 5.4! They may return again at some point in the future, but if you want to be sure to have them, this would be a great time to visit the Barrens and help out the Darkspear Rebellion.

Wowhead has posted a useful guide that can help you make sure to get the most from Battlefield: Barrens before it’s gone.

Professions

ArchaeologyThe Mantid Artifact Sonic Locatoris seeing some changes (you can read the PTR patch notes for details), but the big news for now is that it will be more difficult to obtain in the future, so you maybe want to grab yours now.

New Craftable Raid & PvP GearNew-for-5.4 crafting materials will be usable to craft new Raid and PvP gear. You’ll be able to learn how to create the new crafting materials via recipes that drops from creatures in Pandaria. Be sure to check out the Professions section of the patch notes to see if it might be a good idea to hold onto some of the mats that you’ve already got stashed.

FishingWith the destruction in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Jewel Danio have been airlifted to their new habitat on the Timeless Isle . . . where you can fish them up!

Patching Smoothly

It’s easy to make sure that you’re ready to play when the realms become available on patch day. If you haven’t played in a while, then one of the simplest things you can do is open the World of Warcraft launcher, and allow the updater to download the latest available game files. If you use approved User Interface AddOns, make sure you have the latest versions and that they’re updated and ready to go for the new patch. This is also a good time to update your video card’s drivers, to ensure that there aren’t any compatibility issues.

Getting Additional Account Help

Help with account and in-game issues is just a few clicks away. There may already be a post that addresses your concern on the Customer Support forum, and reading the posts there can be very helpful; the stickied posts at the top are a good first stop, and will help you get the most out of the forum.

In the early days of a patch, players are especially helpful in ensuring the any issues are detected and addressed as soon as possible. You can let us know about previously unreported issues (and find out if a bug you’ve run into has already been reported) on the Bug Report forum.

Comments

Comment by BosephHeyden

on 2013-08-21T18:10:50-05:00

Because three or four people have taken to trying to defend Blizzard and Wowhead for the patch miscommunication, I'm just going to reply in general:

Blizzard never gave a release date. But Wowhead did. That's who lied. Yes, they caught what they said, and changed it, but that doesn't change the fact they had said it. Enough people saw it and likely didn't come back to recheck said story (like myself) to see that they edited the original story to change a headline they had as a certainty to a brief bit that made it sound like speculation.

Comment by siner90

on 2013-08-21T18:24:42-05:00

What about Mogu Rune of Fate? there will be new ones or we can just keep our tokens for a future use in 5.4?

Comment by Adamsm

on 2013-08-21T18:26:02-05:00

What about Mogu Rune of Fate? there will be new ones or we can just keep our tokens for a future use in 5.4?

New token; MRF's are ToT items, just like Greater Charms are for tier 14 raids.

Comment by angelspike

on 2013-08-21T19:49:24-05:00

what a suprise annonce season ends and people go new patch. nothing new really, means 3 more weeks of being bored and waiting for crz ToT

Comment by Aesiria

on 2013-08-21T20:26:58-05:00

Feels like I'm the only one that thinks content is coming out too fast :P

Comment by Aesiria

on 2013-08-21T20:29:18-05:00

Because three or four people have taken to trying to defend Blizzard and Wowhead for the patch miscommunication, I'm just going to reply in general:

Blizzard never gave a release date. But Wowhead did. That's who lied. Yes, they caught what they said, and changed it, but that doesn't change the fact they had said it. Enough people saw it and likely didn't come back to recheck said story (like myself) to see that they edited the original story to change a headline they had as a certainty to a brief bit that made it sound like speculation.

Omg... stop ^&*!@ing about everything. People make mistakes and if you're crying yourself to sleep for the next three weeks I suggest you get professional help or grow up.

So much whining over nothing these days.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013-08-21T22:01:51-05:00

Because three or four people have taken to trying to defend Blizzard and Wowhead for the patch miscommunication, I'm just going to reply in general:

Blizzard never gave a release date. But Wowhead did. That's who lied. Yes, they caught what they said, and changed it, but that doesn't change the fact they had said it. Enough people saw it and likely didn't come back to recheck said story (like myself) to see that they edited the original story to change a headline they had as a certainty to a brief bit that made it sound like speculation.

Geez, get a grip on life. There is no grand conspiracy and the world is not going to end. Nobody is a liar and no harm was done.

A PVP dev made a comment on twitter, he probably didn´t think much about it (twitter after all), but it sounded like a very definitive thing. Players caught it, and it was quickly spread to news sites. Almost immediately, the pvp dev backtracked on his comment, and GC also toned it back a lot, and the News Sites again reported that almost instantly.

For about 3 hours, we all definitely thought patch 5.4 was coming on the 28th. The websites quickly updated the wording as soon as the devs did.. what more do you want them to do? The original dev comment did not say directly that it was coming on the 28th, but the two comments he made together were like saying to add 2 and 2 together. He didn´t have to say 4 for it to be obvious to everyone.

But honestly, wowhead should have much more integrity than it does, it should fact check everything for 3 months before releasing news and it should get written confirmation from a senior person at Blizzard before saying anything. Get a grip, it is a freaking game and a gaming website. The PVP dev misspoke and has now learned a valuable lesson, but you can´t blame newsites for reporting the date as fact.. the way he said it, it sounded like fact.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013-08-21T22:08:38-05:00

Feels like I'm the only one that thinks content is coming out too fast :P

I think on the raid side of things they are a bit fast. I know guilds can still clear unkilled TOT bosses if they want.. but the reality is that most guilds won´t go back to kill those bosses until SoO is also on farm. It is hard to get a guild to kill last tiers bosses when this tiers first 4 bosses are fairly easy and drop much better gear. ( unless the guild has a lot of time to raid, which they probably don´t since they didn´t clear last tier).

As far as the non-raid side of things. I am ready for new content. Everything I do has become boring now. I have my alts to 90 and have no desire to gear them through LFR. Barrens is a waste. I am ´done´ with pet battles, there is no reason to do any more arena since I am not getting any rewards (lol).

If barrens would have had more legs ( ie more fun ways to progress alts) then I would be content there. But the reality is that on most servers, you literally have to kill 200 NPCs every week in order to upgrade 1 piece of gear for an alt.

Comment by fhait

on 2013-08-22T00:37:35-05:00

Lied to a lot of people :(

No they didn't; they never said when it was coming out, only that the season was over next week.

That's the whole problem with the situation. Nobody will give you a straight answer because, god forbid, they might actually have to live up to it or apologize when it doesn't happen. Instead they just allow the community to speculate and get their own hopes up because Blizzard can't handle setting up (and living up to) expectations.

A doctor may be able to prescribe medication to help your problem.

= F

Comment by Merberan

on 2013-08-22T00:45:03-05:00

Did anyone seriously expect that the patch was going to release on the 28th? I mean, the first thing I thought when I heard this rumor thing was 'no way'. I've been testing on PTR myself and I sincerely doubted that Blizzard would get everything done by that point in time, so yeah... They hadn't even STARTED 25man testing, for instance, when they 'announced' it.

Comment by Dristor

on 2013-08-22T04:01:57-05:00

Hah, they choosed bad time to release the patch for me. 17th of september my favourite game comes out and... well, bye bye WoW for about 2 months :).

Comment by Crie

on 2013-08-22T05:30:58-05:00

Blizzard never gave a release date. But Wowhead did. That's who lied.

I always thought there was a difference between a lie and a mistake. They posted it because they believed it to be true then retracted when they realized it (a mistake).

They didn't have the real information and then gave you false information (a lie).

I've never taken any date of patch release as real until I see it from Blizzard anyway. Been around too long and know better.

Comment by CaveMaster

on 2013-08-22T07:34:38-05:00

snip

Yeah, most of these people have probably never done any collaborative creative work, which is why they have no idea what goes into it. Expect, expect... and not even put things into context. Prove that it's an industry standard to set the date one month in advance and keep it when releasing a project that is both an addition of content as well as a huge change in existing one. Show examples. Propose solutions. Be constructive. If you can't fit that in one sentence and are not willing to write more - shut up. Everything requires time and effort and knowledge of facts - criticising and expressing it in a constructive way does too. Otherwise you're just expressing that you're pissed off - and what does anybody care about your mood?

Ah whatever, I have yet to learn to not care about raging that goes on *every* time Blizz does *anything*.

Comment by Angerbreath1

on 2013-08-22T08:14:39-05:00

September 10th? really? I'm so utterly bored with this patch just make 5.4 live :(

Comment by Angerbreath1

on 2013-08-22T08:19:35-05:00

New tokens are Warforged Seals for SoO and the new world bossess

Comment by piraka810

on 2013-08-22T10:35:28-05:00

And 5.3 becomes the new 4.3 as Blizzard decides 1 weekly quest (that's boring as hell) is sufficient content for almost 4 months. Good on you Blizzard!

Comment by Berndorf

on 2013-08-22T11:21:17-05:00

Hah, they choosed bad time to release the patch for me. 17th of september my favourite game comes out and... well, bye bye WoW for about 2 months :).

Which game is that?

p.s. I doubt its a coincidence that the new patch is coming out one week before said game then.

Comment by africanleopard

on 2013-08-22T11:47:17-05:00

Um - you obviously don't follow Twitter. The Dev said that the PvP season is finishing on 27 August and that the patch was dropping. So...if anybody "lied" it was the Developer - who then backtracked. Being a Dev myself, I bet he got hauled over the coals.

wowhead did not misrepresent anything, but responded to the information in the Tweet, which they then fixed when the info changed. No big deal *shrug*

EDIT TO ADD: This is in response to:

BosephHeydenyesterday at 7:09 PM (Patch 5.3.0)ReportQuoteReply

Because three or four people have taken to trying to defend Blizzard and Wowhead for the patch miscommunication, I'm just going to reply in general:

Blizzard never gave a release date. But Wowhead did. That's who lied. Yes, they caught what they said, and changed it, but that doesn't change the fact they had said it. Enough people saw it and likely didn't come back to recheck said story (like myself) to see that they edited the original story to change a headline they had as a certainty to a brief bit that made it sound like speculation

Comment by kintotech

on 2013-08-22T11:48:10-05:00

And 5.3 becomes the new 4.3 as Blizzard decides 1 weekly quest (that's boring as hell) is sufficient content for almost 4 months. Good on you Blizzard!

Yeah, if we were gonna do that, I personally would have rather had it divided into at least *several* quests, good lord that's a grind. Especially if you want anything from the Vendor.

Comment by rsetlock3

on 2013-08-22T11:51:45-05:00

Lots of people seem upset because, like me, they thought the patch would be out next week. However I have been playing Blizzard games for 13 years now. They push back official release dates. So pushing back a speculated release date is nothing to them. This is the way it has been with them. It's annoying, but almost always worth the wait.